


U - like unsavoury urges in Umbar

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: General, Multi-Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2007-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-22 21:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3744668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Alphabet of Middle-earth:<br/>Writing Cues for the "Back to Middle-earth Month 2007"<br/><br/><br/>"The Alphabet of Middle-earth" is a series of short cues to inspire you throughout B2MeM.<br/><br/>We invite you to pick up any cue, any time and to post your take as a comment for the relevant entry at the LiveJournal Community "There and Back Again".<br/><br/>Write a drabble, a drouble, a tribble, a quabble or a quibble! Write 100, 200, 300, 400 or 500 words! No matter if it's serious or silly, anything goes.<br/><br/>And here is already the next cue:<br/><br/>U - like unsavoury urges in Umbar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Scent of Spice - by Dwimordene

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

**October, Umbar, 2979**  
  
The scent of it was the very smell of desire—so it was said, and the  
Greening Festival was aptly dedicated to the ripening of springtide.  
The air was heavy with the scent of spice—not the heavy, savoury scent  
of most kitchens in Umbar, but the sharp-sweet scent of more exotic  
spices, and not a few young men and women in their bloom milled about,  
eyeing the merchants' wares and each other under the watchful eyes of  
chaperones.  
  
Aragorn was naturally curious, but he had not so much coin to spare  
that he could afford to indulge curiosity. The swiftest way out of  
Umbar was by ship, and he ought to have just enough…  
  
"You!" a threatening voice boomed out, very nearly in his ear, and  
Aragorn tensed, habit sending one hand to the knife tucked up one  
sleeve. _Not now!_ Not after all he had been through in his  
southern journeying, and when he had but a few streets between him and  
the docks, and the journey home at last…!  
  
But then the weeping began, and he realized he was not the one  
accused. Not this time. He was about to continue on his way, but  
something about the sound of those tears made him turn. A little ways  
away, an irate spice merchant had a girl by the wrist. And girl she  
was—surely no more than nine or ten, and the dusty, tattered brown  
robe she wore suggested one of the denizens of Tilnum Alley, one of  
the poorer streets in Umbar that lay nearby.  
  
"Thought you'd steal from me, eh?" the merchant was growling, and the  
girl seemed to shrink into herself. "We'll just see about that. Brat!  
The magistrates ought to be pleased to be rid of you…" At which the  
girl's sobs became wails of sheer terror, and Aragorn, who had seen  
enough of the magistrates and their men to credit her fears, sighed  
softly. And then he stepped forward.  
  
"Oh for—! I promised, did I not, that we would come here in good time?  
I have matters to attend to first, Phani'im," he said, adopting an air  
of exasperated patience, even as he reached for the first girl's name  
that came to mind. _Pray that our merchant does not know her name  
already,_ he thought, as he shook his head and cupped a hand under  
the girl's chin, forcing her to look at him. "Did I not promise? Must  
you defy me every time and go your own way?" The girl was staring at  
him now with wide eyes, but fortunately she caught on swiftly.  
  
"Sorry. Just that I wanted a taste…" she muttered.  
  
"Well, and now you'll get it perforce, but we'll not come again next  
year," he warned. Then turning to the merchant, who was watching him  
with narrowed eyes, he bowed, and said, as graciously as he knew how,  
"You have my apologies, honored sir. My sister is ill and her husband  
away—my niece is unruly without them, and I fear I have no one to  
teach me the ways of small girls. What did she take?"  
  
"Put her fingers in my spice box, she did," the merchant replied,  
still eyeing him with some suspicion, even as he indicated an elegant  
little chest filled with a rich, brown powder. Aragorn weighed the  
coins in his purse and stifled a groan.  
  
"How much for the box?" he asked, resignedly, as all the long leagues  
of Harad stretched out before his mind's eye. _It seems I shall be_  
going home the long way…  
  
 **Lithe, Lórien, 2980**  
  
"What is it?" Arwen asked curiously, running her hands over the  
ornately carved box, Beren's ring winking upon her finger in the  
evening's light. She opened it and Aragorn watched her eyes light with  
pleasure as the heady, sweet scent of cinnamon wafted upwards. He  
thought of the waif in Umbar, clutching the cinnamon sticks the  
merchant had insisted he buy in addition to the chest, and smiled. It  
had cost him a long walk home, but it was worth it, and so he answered:  
  
"That, as they say, is the very scent of love."


	2. Necessity - by Gwynnyd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Alphabet of Middle-earth:

U – like unsavoury urges in Umbar  
 ****  
Necessity  
  
Ten years.  He had known they would catch him eventually and he would die a painful and humiliating death, but he had not been able to stop.  The fetters cut into his skin, dragging his wrists up and back.  Every breath gasped as his chest strained against the weight of his body to drag in one more lungful of air.   
  
"No more."  The strangled syllables took three of his precious breaths.   
  
"Come. Confess," the relentless voice cajoled, "and we will let you die.  Did you steal the children?"  
  
Death no longer frightened him.  "Yes."  
  
Through crusted and blurred eyes, he saw the inquisitor come near and tap the handle of the lash into his other hand.  "Yes," he repeated.  "You took the children from their families and led them out into the desert?"  
  
"Yes."    
  
"You took the children out into the desert and mutilated them?"  
  
"Yes."  By the end, there had been many pretty babies who had screamed and whimpered under his knives. And he was skilled, oh yes. He knew how to make the cuts so they would scar.  But he had listened to the voice and it had to be done. He had no regrets. No.  His knife had slipped once, at the beginning, and blinded a dainty slip of girl. He sometimes saw her groping her way down the street and he did regret that, though not the jagged slash that disfigured her face.  
  
"Why?"  The handle of the lash poked into his shoulder and he had not breath enough even to groan.  
  
"Answer.  You will be dead by morning."  The voice sounded matter-of-fact.   
  
He knew that.  He too was skilled in the application of torture, and had stood where the inquisitor stood now, judging to a nicety how and where to inflict pain to elicit truth.  For most of his life he had gloried in the righteousness of his job.  Blood was the life and the sacrifice.  It had all gone wrong.  
  
Why had he ever listened to that northern barbarian?  Why had he been granted a vision of peace and how the world was meant to be?  The insistent voice of god filled his mind.  
  
A stool kicked under his feet woke a different layer of pain from his broken bones, but it granted him enough breath to answer.    
  
"Why? Only unblemished children are sacrificed to Annatar, and he is not god.  I deny him."

~~

A/N – this is a companion quadrabble to my "S – like sordid Sauron" prompt.  
  
"No mind can, however, be closed against Eru, either against His inspection or against His message. The latter it may not heed, but it cannot say it did not receive it".  
   Ósanwe-kenta  - JRR Tolkien  
  



End file.
